PROMOTION: Pabst Vobiscum

Full of good spirits, the Pabst Brewing Co. has for years sent out postcards offering six free cans of beer to new residents of Milwaukee. Nobody ever turned down Pabst’s friendly gesture, until last June. Then Dr. James Norwood, new pastor of the Greater Milwaukee Baptist Temple, shot off a heated refusal to Pabst’s president : “It is a shame the clergy has sunk so low” that Pabst would “think the clergy would drink the damnable stuff.” But last week Pastor Norwood and six other ministers attending a tristate Baptist Fellowship meeting in Milwaukee paid a surprise visit to the Pabst plant to become, as Norwood put it, “spies in the devil’s workhouse.”

After a fast-talking Pabst guide led the spies past the plant’s mixing kettles of hops and malt, Norwood caustically observed: “It destroys the potency of God-given foods.” When the guide meekly suggested that beer actually was 90% water, Norwood obviously saw this only as “a trick of Satan to delude the public.” In the noisy bottling house, as the cans and bottles rattled and banged through a maze of conveyor belts, a Baptist voice was heard above the din: “This canning process shows the genius of man to produce a product, and the cleverness of Satan to deceive our hearts and minds.”

Having safely gotten past the Hospitality Bar, where Pabst dispenses free beer to guests, the seven ministers met Production Vice President Lewis P. Weiner, who tried to convince them that “there is a great difference of opinion as to whether beer is an intoxicating beverage.” Norwood knew better. “I’ve gotten drunk from it,” he said, coolly explained that he once was a heavy drinker but was saved by the ministry. Said Weiner: “I’m glad you could come; it shows a spirit of broad-mindedness.” Replied Norwood: “Even football teams send scouts to see the enemy.”